In helping a friend plan her wedding, I was recently reminded of how math applies in planning an event. Here are a few ideas to share with your students.
A. Total cost given per-person cost: If the caterer charges $29.50 a guest, and you have 80 guests, how much will food cost? If you increase to 90 guests, how much will your catering cost go up?
B. Total with tip: If your total caterer bill is $2,500, and you add a 20% gratuity off the $2,500, how much would the total with tip be?
C. Here is what you’ve spent on center table decorations: $41.23, $32.12, $20.15, and $50.60. If all that decorates 5 tables, what is the cost per table?
D. The baker charges $356 for a cake that feeds 50. What is the cost per person?
Always remember, math is a useful tool that helps us with real-life tasks!
Solutions: A. $29.50 x 80 =$2,360.00; if increase to 90, total is $29.50 x 90=$2,655.00; difference is $2,655.00-$2,360.00=$295.00. B. 1.20 x $2,500 = $3,000 (Multiplied by 1.20 to include the 20% tip, as 100% + 20% = 120% = 1.20; could also have found 20% and added that to $2,500). C. $41.23+$32.12+$20.15+$50.60=$144.10; $144.10/5=$28.82 D. $356/50=$7.12
Need a curriculum that shows students every concept as a useful tool? Check out Kate’s Middle School and High School curriculum, along with elementary supplements that can enrich whatever curriculum you use. Enjoy 30% off most materials through the end of April!
Over the years, I’ve heard from many parents who have children struggling with math. It’s a subject synonymous with frustration for many.
Often, the frustration tones down when students are really shown math’s purpose. When students understand why they’re learning something and are given opportunities to apply it outside of a textbook, there becomes a purpose to learning that’s sadly lacking in many math presentations. As Christians, we should want to show our students math as a way of describing God’s creation, which involves actually letting them see math in action.
For some students, though, that’s not enough. God has wired them in a way where they need additional help memorizing facts and mathematical processes.
My son is one of those. I tried everything I could think of to help him learn his math facts, but it felt like they’d never stick. Reading, too, seemed an impossibility until I found out he likely has dyslexia and began teaching him differently. Watching his progress in reading with a change in approach led to exploring how to change his approach in math too.
While there are a lot of different ways to help struggling math learners, I want to share just one in this post: visuals. Some people’s brains (including my son’s) remember pictures rather than words. This is often referred to as “right-brained” learning; although we all have two sides to our brain, some learners tend to remember better if taught pictorially.
Switching to a more visual-based curriculum helped my son tremendously, but I learned I still had to modify when we hit various stick points, such as with multiplication facts. When I used a program with visual aids for his multiplication facts [Right-Brained Multiplication and Division], he went from hating multiplication to loving it and wanting to learn more in a day. (At least that one day—all kids have their good and bad days.) I began researching ways to make math more visual, both for him and other students wired visually.
Here are a couple of examples of using visual cues (combined with patterns when possible) to help aid memory:
When multiplied, 1 is like a running back who runs away, leaving the other number behind.
The negative sign is ornery. It always wants the opposite. When two are together, they get hurt and make a medical sign (the + sign).
Manipulatives can also be a great visual. Try to be consistent with them. Visually-orietented students are memorizing the picture of the manipulative, not the fact or the rules, so they need to see it built the same way over and over again repetitively. Manipulatives that help students think in terms of what makes 10 seem to work best. 7 + 4 = 11 In the picture, 7 and 3 make 10. The extra 1 makes 11.
Manipulatives can also help make prealgebra more visual. A circle or household object can be used as a placeholder for the unknown.
As they get older, math can be made more visual by such things as using color (such as a different color for the top and bottom of a fraction, different units of measure, different unknowns, or congruent sides or angles) and taking notes (in which they can use color and draw their own visual aids as needed).
There’s a lot more that could be said about helping struggling math learners, but hopefully that give you a few ideas. If your child is struggling with a math concept, I’d love if you dropped a comment and shared about it. I will either respond there with some ideas to try or address it in a future post! Be sure to also check out the resources below for help in making math more visual.
Pictorial Resources – New visual aids – I’ve put a bunch of pictorial ideas in Visual Aids that are now available as part of my Principle of Mathematics eCourses. The eCourses themselves also show concepts more visually than a textbook can.
– The Big Book of Mathis an awesome tool to show visual learners math’s purpose.
Every time we go to the doctor, the nurse takes a few key measurements: our blood pressure, weight, height (if we’re still in growing years), and temperature. Depending on our issue, they might run some blood work. They do this because our bodies God finely tuned our bodies to operate just right, and these numbers—as well as many others—can clue us in to if something is out of place.
Blood Pressure
Stop and marvel at your heart for just a moment. All without your thinking about it, it pumps blood at just the right pressure through your body, adjusting that pressure automatically based on your activity level. If it beats too high or low, your body stops functioning correctly. Ask someone who’s had that happen and they can tell you what a gift a working heart really is.
Height & Weight
Your height and weight can be used to calculate what we call a BMI (Body Mass Index). Simply divide your weight by your height to find yours. That simple ratio gives us a way to compare if we’re at a healthy weight…and to see if children are growing appropriately.
Temperature
It’s no fun when we run a fever, is it? God designed our bodies to operate within a certain range, and when our immune system has to raise the temperature higher to fight off an infection, we feel it. We don’t often stop to think, though, about how amazing it is that our bodies can control our temperature in the first place. Yet a functioning body temperature is a daily gift from God.
Blood Work
Doctors sometimes need to draw blood work. If you’ve ever looked at blood work results, you might have noticed that it’s filled with numbers of what was in the blood analyzed, as well as normal ranges for that value. If you’ve ever had anything show up abnormal on your blood work, you may know how something simple being off in our blood can cause major problems. For example, if our blood sugar is off as is the case in diabetes, we can experience major health issues.
Stop & Praise
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well” Psalm 139:13-14 (ESV)
When we use math to measure the quantities and operations in our bodies, we see that we are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made.” We’re finely tuned on so many levels, from blood pressure to temperature to sugar levels to hormones to oxygenation—the list could go on and on and on. Our amazing bodies should cause us to praise our great Creator!
At the same time, the reality that our bodies don’t always work right should remind us that we live in a fallen world—a world gone wrong because of sin. In God’s original creation, Adam and Eve’s bodies worked just right all the time. Sin changed that. Now we’re all in the process of dying, and our bodies often don’t stay perfectly tuned. Sin is serious, and we’ve all sinned. We desperately need the Savior, Jesus Christ; through faith in Him, we can look forward to a perfect world again with new bodies that do work perfectly.
Next time you think about math, remember that it helps us explore God’s creation—including our bodies. As it does, it points us to God’s amazing design—and reminds us of the seriousness of sin. Pause and praise the God who both knit you together and chose to become a human to save you from sin and bring you to Himself and a perfect world again.
Watching Christmas light shows has become a holiday tradition for many. But few stop to think of all the math that goes into these spectacular displays.
Strands per Outlet or Lights per Circuit
When hanging a lot of lights, you want to make sure you don’t blow a circuit! Bonfe offers this formula to help you figure out how many strands can go in each outlet: # of strands = circuit amperage ÷ strand amperage. We could also use algebra to write this same thing like this: n = c/s or y = z/x. We’re just using letters to stand for the different values, and a fraction to stand for division. Another site says to only use up to 80% of what your circuit can handle as a safety factor. Notice the percents!
Timing
Some light shows include timing with music. Syncing music with a light show requires precision that can be accomplished through various software programs that use math to determine when different effects and lights turn on and off at different moments in the show. In this case, programming the time in seconds that the lights sync with the music includes math!
Cost & Number
The financial cost of Christmas decorations can add up fast! Setting a budget and keeping track of how much money is spent uses addition and subtraction…as well as some rounding skills to keep an approximate total in the store. And how many lights do you need to decorate that garage anyway? Math can help you answer that!
Remember…
As you drive by light displays this year, remember that math applies outside of a textbook. It even aids with Christmas lights.
More importantly, think about why math applies. Why can we even know how many amps a string of light will require? It’s because electricity operates in a consistent fashion. Why? Because God created and sustains an orderly universe.
And that same Creator and Sustainer became a man to make a way for us to know Him by paying for our sin Himself.
Now that’s something to remember this Christmas and always.
When we think of learning, it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking of an official lesson. Sometimes, though, the best learning might seem more like play. Little ones especially may not be ready to sit and do an official math lesson. But that doesn’t mean they can’t begin to discover the joy of numbering God’s creation!
Here are some ideas on how to get started teaching numbers to young learners. Keep in mind they can all be adapted to fit your child.
Playing ball with your child? Count the number of throws. Slipping counting into play is a subtle way to help a child begin to think about numbers.
Is your child more attentive in the morning? Try pulling the calendar down each morning and counting through the days of the month during breakfast or snack time. Maybe have paper or a dry erase board handy so he or she can help write today’s number. You could also let him or her put a sticker on the date once they’ve counted up to it.
Have a snack of crackers or raisins? Count them out together. Or use the raisins as manipulatives to help a child understand 10-20. Form a pile of 10 raisins, and explain we write 10 as 10—1 pile of ten and zero more. Then add a raisin next to that pile of 10. Explain that now we have 1 pile of ten and 1 more, so we write 11. The 1 to the left means 1 pile of ten.
Have a child afraid of writing the numbers wrong? Use a dry erase board or chalkboard. I also once heard the idea of having children write in sand with their fingers. Get creative—numbers don’t have to be learned on paper!
Make a habit of point out numbers you see in life. When putting away a cheerio box, stop and have your child find some numbers on it first. (You could do letters at the same time.) When your child opens a Bible, point out the chapters and verses. Point out when you’re using numbers while cooking or driving. Count aloud whenever you count. You’re child is paying more attention than you realize!
Board games are great teaching tools. Have your child count the number of circles on the dice and move that many. Or get a die that has the numbers written on it. (If the game uses 2 dice, have them do one die at a time rather than trying to tell them the sum…until they’re ready for addition.)
When looking at books, have your child count how many ducks, dots, etc., are on the page. Or if they can’t count yet, count them yourselves. Children are great imitators—if they see you curious and counting, they’ll likely catch on.
As you talk about numbers, remember to sometimes remind your child that numbers help us explore God’s creation. We can count because God gave us that ability. Make counting a fun part of life—learning doesn’t have to be tedious book work, especially with little ones!
Looking for more ideas on teaching elementary math? I wrote Revealing Arithmetic specifically to help guide parents and teachers through the early years. There’s also an eCourse where I demonstrate teaching different concepts.
With the Major League Baseball World Series well under way, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at the math involved in baseball. We’ll also see how all of it reminds us to praise the Creator.
Basic Numbers
Some of math’s applications to baseball are both obvious and basic. How many pitches a pitcher has pitched (called the “pitch count”), the strike and ball counts, the scores (called number of “runs”), the number of innings, the number of players, the numbers on the players’ jerseys—all these and more are examples of basic counting and numbers in action. How many innings are left after the 3rd finishes (assuming the game is not tied at the end)? That can be found using subtraction; taking 9 (the total innings with no tie game) – 3 (the innings completed) leaves the answer of 6 left. Do that same math after the top of the 3rd instead (meaning only half an inning has completed), and you get 9 – 2 ½ = 6 ½. Notice the fractional amount.
Basic Geometry
Baseball also has lots of examples of basic geometry in action. The shapes of the bases (squares), home plate (an irregular pentagon), ball (sphere), and infield (square or diamond) are all basic shapes familiar to many students. The perimeter of the infield would let us know how far a runner runs when he hits a home run; the volume of the ball could be useful if we needed to find the density of the ball (which would require basic algebra—the formula is listed below, where m is the mass and V the volume.
Statistics
When watching a baseball game, lots of statistics appear on screen. These statistics are calculated using math!
For example, batting averages are the result of taking the total hits divided by the total at bats, or total hits ÷ total at bats. (Note that total at bats “does not include walks, hits by pitch, or sacrifices” https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-a-Batting-Average.) Notice this requires both counting up the total hits and total at bats, and then uses division!
Here’s a site that explains the math behind various other statistics used: https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard-stats/earned-run-average. If you’re teaching elementary math, you might want to check it out and make up some problems for your child to use. For example, knowing that batting averages are found using the formula total hits ÷ total at bats, make up some numbers for total hits and total at bats. (Note that the total hits will typically be less than at bats…unless a player hits the ball every time!) Say a player hit the ball 5 times and had 25 at bats; a student can calculate then that his batting average is 5 divided by 25, or 0.2, by plugging 5 in for total hits and 25 for total at bats.
You might want to point out that whenever statistics are used, it’s important to ask questions about them, as they can easily be presented in a misleading way. While this isn’t really an issue in baseball (unless someone misunderstands the stat), baseball can be used to illustrate how statistics can be twisted to help students learn to discern through the bombardment of statistics we encounter in the news, advertisements, etc., where they ae often twisted.
For example, say it’s a player’s first time at bat ever in the major leagues. He hits the ball during that at bat. His batting average the next time he steps up to the plate is 1 (he’s had 1 hit and 1 at bat), which equals 1. If you just see a batting average of 1 you might think he’s an amazing player…but we don’t really know that yet. This illustrates a general rule in statistics that the more data you have to calculate an average off, a better reflection of reality is the average is. We need a lot more at bats than 1 to really know how good a player is based on their batting average. In a similar vein, batting averages can be calculated over a player’s lifetime, for a series, or for a game. The point is that it’s always important to understand how a stat is calculated and what it’s really saying.
Algebra and Calculus
We can use algebra in calculating perimeter, area, and volume (the formulas are often written algebraically). We can also use algebra to figure out different facts from various stats. For example, if we know the formula for a batting average and one of the other values in the formula, we can use algebra to find the other value. Say we know a batting average over 100 at bats is 0.2. That means this:
Since we typically use letters to stand for unknowns in algebra, let’s replace total hits with an x. We’ll also replace the with a fraction line, as that’s the typical way to show division in algebra.
Now, because of the faithful, consistent way God governs creation, we can multiply both sides by 100 to solve for , thereby seeing that this player must have had a total of 20 hits.
Algebra (and calculus too) can also help us explore the physics behind baseball. For example, the speed of a pitch is cited throughout a game. While that speed is measured using a radar gun (a device built by using math to both understand and then design around the consistent way God governs creation), you could explain to your student how we could use algebra to calculate the approximate time the ball was in the air given that speed.
We know from physics that distance = speed • time, or d = st. If we solve this equation for time (t) by dividing both sides by s, we get d/s = t. According to the MLB, the distance from the pitcher’s mound and home base is 60 ft 6 in (approximately 0.011458 mi). Let’s say a pitcher pitches a ball that goes 90 miles per hour (mi/hr). Approximately how long was the ball in the air before it crossed home plate? Let’s plug in 0.011458 mi for distance (d) and 90 for the speed (s).
Formula solved for time (t):
Plugging in the values and simplifying:
Converting that to seconds using the knowledge that there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, we’d get approximately 0.45832 seconds for the time the ball was in the air, so not quite half a second. That’s not long!
While I won’t go into it in this post, there’s much more that we could use algebra and calculus to explore in baseball, including exploring the force the batter has to apply to the bat in different situations. Check out Chegg’s “Baseball and Calculus” if you’d like to explore calculus (plus really a lot of algebra too) and baseball further.
Pausing to Praise
Think about the fact that in less than half a second (see the Algebra and Calculus section above), a batter is able to process a pitch and decide if and how to swing.
When I was going through a concussion recovery, I remember reading an article in the Answers magazine about how our brain is designed to learn. God has wired us so that if we practice a skill over and over again, our brain will actually change in response, allowing batters to train their brains to respond to pitches. Pause for just one minute to ponder that—and praise the God that made your incredible brain.
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14 (ESV)
Also think about all the math that is used in simply setting up a baseball field where the bases are the right distance from each other…and in analyzing a game (let alone a season). We tend to treat statistics as commonplace, but they’re really shouting out at us that we live in a consistent universe held together by a consistent God. After all, they’re found by using division and other math operations…which hold true because day after day, century after century, millennium after millennium, God holds creation together consistently.
Indeed, we need to take a moment to pause to praise—and to reflect on the fact that knowing our amazing Creator is the greatest goal we could ever run after. We achieve salvation from sin and a relationship with God by receiving “the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:9 ESV), but the Christian life doesn’t end there. Like athletes chase after goals, we’re called to chase after living more and more like we will be one day in Heaven—Christ’s completely.
“But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13b-14 (ESV)
Baseball is one of countless examples of math in action students explore in the Principles series. If you’re looking for a curriculum that both shows math’s usefulness and points math to the Creator, be sure to check out the biblical math materials we’ve put together.
Hurricanes can be devastating, as so many know personally. But we often don’t stop to think about the role math plays in tracking hurricanes, helping to save lives and property from their grip, and assisting those affected. Nor do we think through how much hurricanes shout out humanity’s need for a Savior.
Below are some ideas on these themes that I hope will prove helpful to you with your children/students.
Hurricanes & Math
Tracking Hurricanes – Every hurricane season, the weather news is filled with updates on developing storms and hurricanes and predictions about where that hurricane might impact. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), predictions are based on data collected from satellites, which is in itself an application of math. Pressure, latitude and longitude, speed—all these are measurements. As I’m writing this, the NOAA lists this data on Hurricane Larry—notice the numbers! 5:00 AM AST Fri Sep 3 Location: 14.6°N 38.9°W Moving [speed]: WNW at 20 mph Min pressure [minimum central pressure]: 982 mb Max sustained [winds]: 90 mph
Giving Warning – Advanced warning of when a hurricane will touch shore can help save many lives and property. And math is used in that process! The NOAA explains about the models used to do this. A simple summary is that models (think mathematical equations) can be based on statistics (i.e., think historical measurements), knowledge about the atmosphere (i.e., what we know of the consistent way God governs creation), a combination, or on other models.
Rescuing & Helping – After a hurricane strikes, there’s a lot of cleanup! Math proves helpful in assessing the damage (you’ll hear about how many died or howdeep the water was or how much property was lost) and figuring out how to allocate resources to help. Imagine trying to recover from a hurricane without any math. No one would know how many people were helping where…or how many supplies had been (or needed to be) sent where.
Hurricanes & the Savior
Every time a hurricane strikes, we not only use a lot of math, but we should also be reminded of how desperately we need a Savior. Their very existence screams out that the world is no longer very good (Genesis 1:31)—when sin entered the world, it brought with it death and suffering. God has allowed us to endure a tiny taste of life where He removes His protective hand in the hopes that we’ll come to Him and avoid eternal wrath—a wrath against which, like a hurricane, we can’t stand. The Bible warns that, while He is longsuffering, hoping that we’ll turn to Him and receive eternal life as a gift, there’s coming a day when it will be too late and He will pour out His wrath on the earth.
“For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many.” Isaiah 66:15-16 (ESV)
That wrath is against sin—and we all have sinned. That’s why we need a Savior! And God gave us One. He poured His wrath out on Jesus, and if we’ll but believe in Him, we will be saved from the wrath to come…and have eternal life in a perfect world without the suffering and death in this one.
Hurricanes also point us to God’s power to both punish and save. We crumble helpless before storms, yet Jesus spoke, and a storm stopped (Mark 4:35-41). The power of a hurricane pales in comparison with the power of God. And that should make us tremble if our faith is not in Christ and run to Him for salvation—but should give us tremendous peace and comfort if our faith is in Him, as if we’re in Christ, that powerful God is our loving Heavenly Father who is with us in every storm of life.
Practical Idea to Use with Your Child/Students
To give students a glimpse into the math involved in tracking hurricanes, go to https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ and look at stats on a hurricane two days in a row. Have your child use math to figure out how the speed (i.e., moving), minimum central pressure, and maximum sustained winds changed. Then have them look at a map with latitude and longitude marked and have them find the different locations of the hurricane; for example, the map below shows the location given above for hurricane Larry. You could even have them plot a hurricane’s position over several days!
Point out to them how math helps us outside of a textbook. Remind them we’re able to use math like this because God made us in His image and gave us dominion over the earth. Then talk with them about how hurricanes remind us of how desperately we need a Savior.
Looking for ways to keep math fresh during the summer? How about to use the summer to help students grasp some concepts that just haven’t fully sunk in yet?
Summertime can be a great time to really give students a glimpse into math outside of a textbook, to build their biblical worldview of math, or to give some added practice on different skills. Below are a few ideas to help.
Summer Projects and Problem-Solving Skills – A great way to help your students learn problem-solving skills is to give them opportunities to use math outside a textbook, guiding them through figuring out what information they know, what they need to know, and what steps they can take to get from one to the other. This previous blog post gives some ideas of how you might do that as you live life this summer.
Glimpses of Math in Action – Explore how math applies in different industries of interest to your child–or in helping us explore God’s creation. NASA has a whole section of resources on their website that shows many applications in exploring the heavens; only note that they are not from a biblical worldview, so you’ll want to use them as a discernment discussion too. For example, this No Small Steps video gives a fascinating look into the “brains” behind a SLS rocket. It would provide a wonderful opportunity to talk about how MUCH work went into designing the rocket…and how MUCH more powerful our own brains are too. There’s no way a rocket would assemble by chance…nor is there any way our brains did!
Firming Up the Basics & Worldview Building – Summertime could be a great time to go back over concepts students have studied and review them, building their biblical worldview in the process. Revealing Arithmetic: Math Concepts from a Biblical Worldview is a resource I wrote that has both the biblical worldview of and ideas to reinforce arithmetic concepts (counting through exponents and roots). One idea is to go through a chapter of it a week, picking one or two of the ideas listed there. (Ideas include things like playing games together, included worksheets, everyday life examples, hands-on activities, etc.) With older students, you can have them read the chapter themselves and pick an idea. There’s even a video eCourse you could use; if the student has already learned the basics of the concept, you can have them watch the videos with you as a way to review.
Keeping the Facts Fresh – There are a variety of online worksheet generators you can use to generate worksheets your child can use to review math’s mechanics. We’ve got a list of some on ourPrinciples of Mathematics Book Extra’s page.
My husband and I recently moved into our first home together…and we’ve done a lot of math along the way! Below are a few ways math is used while moving into a new home.
Buying the Home – Buying a home requires a lot of paperwork…some of which lists numbers such as your down payment, closing fees you owe, closing fees the seller owes, etc. All those numbers need checked (my husband actually found an error in one draft they had to fix), which requires basic adding and subtracting on a calculator with decimal numbers (and knowing what to add/subtract).
Unloading Furniture – Where should we put ______? Determining where furniture goes isn’t always as easy as it sounds. But rather than lifting it and trying it in lots of places (which can be really hard on heavy pieces), measuring the piece and measuring the room (or part of the room) can help figure out where to put it without breaking your back. Addition and subtraction (including of fractions), as well as unit conversion, also come into play. For example, if the window is 45 1/2 inches high and the table comes up 30 3/16 inches, how much space will be between the table and the window? Is it enough for a project that needs to be 5 feet off the floor to sit on?
Installing Curtains…and Hanging Pictures – Buying a new home, we had a lot of things we needed to install, from curtains to towel racks to cabinet doorknobs. And then there’s hanging pictures. Measuring helps you know where to drill the hole for the screw/put the nail so it all ends up at the right height. Not only does measuring and basic arithmetic help out here, but so do problem-solving skills. When my husband installed the kitchen drawer handles, he had to think through how to get them centered. After all, neither screw needed to be in the center of the cabinet—the center of the handle needed to be there, but the screws were on the sides of the handle. He had to think through that if he measured the length of the handle and divided it in 2, he’d find the distance from the center of the cabinet on either side he should put the screws in order to have the handle centered.
Buying Furniture – What size rug do we need to buy? Will that loveseat fit? If we put the loveseat there, will the recliner still have room to recline back? All of this requires measuring, addition, and subtraction (including sometimes of fractions). When will my furniture arrive if shipping takes 2 weeks? That again requires addition!
Budgeting – How much are we spending? How much do we have left to spend? Again, addition and subtraction (with decimal numbers this time) in action!
Math is far from a mere textbook exercise—it helps us complete tasks. Those are only a few tasks math helped my husband and I complete lately.
As you teach math, be sure to let your child use math outside of a textbook too. Doing a home improvement project? Let them help you figure out the cost, make measurements, etc. (If you don’t have a project, you could make a hypothetical one to work on—that could be as simple as seeing if a certain piece of furniture would fit in another room, or how many gallons of paint would be needed to repaint a room (and how much it would cost at $24.99 a gallon).) Remind them that God gave us work to do here on earth, and math is a tool to help us in that work. And it’s a tool we can use while praising the Creator and working to His glory.
Looking for Good Math Materials? Revealing Arithmetic helps you transform the younger grades (plus we sell a complete elementary program), Principles of Mathematics is a complete program (with an optional ecourse) for junior high, we just released an ecourse to go alongside Jacob’s algebra, and we’re getting into the final stages of Algebra 2 (watch for it in early 2021, Lord willing).
With much of the world sheltering in place, I thought now might be a good time to blog about working on math during the downtime. These ideas also work during summer vacation…and throughout the year.
Show Your Child Math Around the House
Look for simple ways to show your children math concepts in action around the house. Here are a few ideas.
Baking can use fractions—including multiplying them if you halve or double a recipe.
Many games use basic counting and number skills—especially if you have your child be the score keeper or banker. They can also provide an opportunity to talk about probability with older students.
Finance skills can be taught by using the down time to show your child how you keep a budget or balance a checkbook.
Crafting uses various math skills. Making cards, sewing, woodworking, etc., involves working with fractions in measuring out the materials.
Music involves fractions; after all, we use quarter notes, half notes, etc.!
As you show your children math in action, remind them that math works outside of a textbook because God created and sustains a consistent world.
For more ideas of how to reinforce arithmetic concepts, take a look at Revealing Arithmetic. It explains how to look at each concept biblically (and why different methods work!), offering many practical real-life ideas (along with a few worksheets) you could use with your children to show them the concept in action. Many of these ideas (such as designing and using an abacus) would make great (and fun!) shelter-in-place activities.
Use Worksheets for Trouble Areas
I’m cautious about publishing a list of drill worksheets, as while drill worksheets have their place, there’s a problem if math becomes only about fact memorization or drills. Students need to see why they’re learning what they’re learning and have opportunities to really apply the concepts they study outside a textbook! Drill worksheets are like scales and technique exercises in music. They help students master a skill, but they’re not a song. And just like most students would hate practicing music if all they played were technical exercises without any songs, so most students will hate math if all they do are drill worksheets.
Nevertheless, math drills serve their place. Some students need extra reinforcement on specific problem areas. (Although make sure they really understand the concept before throwing too much drill at them; sometimes students struggle to remember because they don’t really understand why the method works or why they need to learn it.) With that in mind, here are some internet resources for printing out worksheets.
Math on the Level ($5 monthly or $35 yearly fee) – Developed by a friend specifically with homeschoolers in mind, 5-a-Day-Review Online Essentials will custom generate problems based on your choices of skills that need tested. A list of the concepts it covers can be found here. While designed to go alongside the math program the company sells, the software would really work for any elementary through pre-algebra program. The beauty of this program is that it lets you pick different skills—you can review fractions, finding the area, and addition all in one worksheet, for example—and specify exactly what aspect of each to review! And the software will often be able to combine concepts into one problem, meaning your students can keep more skills fresh in their minds without a ton of busywork. Easily customize a completely tailored worksheet–and print out the answer key too!
IXL Math – I appreciate how this site is organized. You can find problems by topic or by grade (spanning all the way from pre-K to calculus!). Rather than worksheets to print, these are online interactive problems; if a student gets one wrong, the system will tell them (and explain why).
Worksheet Works – Worksheet Works offers a variety of slightly customizable worksheets on a variety of topics. Note that some worksheets require a $14.95/year membership.
Math Drills – Math Drills offers just what the name implies: math drills. These are a bunch of free, old-fashioned printable drill sheets. There does not appear to be a way to customize them, so it may take you a bit longer to find what you need—and you might not need to have your child complete the whole sheet (depending on how many problems you felt they really needed to solve).
Again, please remember to use drills like you would technical exercises—in small doses to help strengthen skills, not as your main teaching device. Please see the first section above for ideas on actually helping students see why they should bother mastering math’s mechanics. If all students see are the mechanics, they’re completely missing out on understanding math as a way of describing God’s creation and a real-life tool they can use to serve Him. And, to return to the music illustration, they might just decide they hate math, only because they’ve only seen the “exercise” part of math without ever getting to “play a song.”
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Have a favorite math worksheet site? Did you try out one of these sites? Have you found other ways to reinforce math during this down time? Please share in the comments!
And please join me for a free webinar on Math from a Biblical Worldview? next Tuesday!Learn more/register now here.
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I’m a sinner saved by grace through Jesus Christ. I’m also a writer—I’ve been writing ever since I could hold a pen. I… Meet Katherine [Loop] Hannon.
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7 + 4 = 11
Installing Curtains…and Hanging Pictures – Buying a new home, we had a lot of things we needed to install, from curtains to towel racks to cabinet doorknobs. And then there’s hanging pictures. Measuring helps you know where to drill the hole for the screw/put the nail so it all ends up at the right height. Not only does measuring and basic arithmetic help out here, but so do problem-solving skills. When my husband installed the kitchen drawer handles, he had to think through how to get them centered. After all, neither screw needed to be in the center of the cabinet—the center of the handle needed to be there, but the screws were on the sides of the handle. He had to think through that if he measured the length of the handle and divided it in 2, he’d find the distance from the center of the cabinet on either side he should put the screws in order to have the handle centered.
I’m a sinner saved by grace through Jesus Christ. I’m also a writer—I’ve been writing ever since I could hold a pen. I… 
